Korg ESX vs. Ableton vs ?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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milfhuntr
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Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:19 pm

Korg ESX vs. Ableton vs ?

Post by milfhuntr » Sat Nov 20, 2010 6:41 pm

I have been watching vids of the esx and emx and I can't see anything it can do that I can't just do with Ableton. Does anyone here know what its use might be to an owner of Ableton Live? I mean, it has portability but Ableton on a laptop will seemingly do the same things.

gaijin1717
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Location: Oakland

Re: Korg ESX vs. Ableton vs ?

Post by gaijin1717 » Sat Nov 20, 2010 7:39 pm

I bought the ESX before I bought Live. If I had Live first I probably wouldn't have spent $400 on the ESX, but I did, and there are a lot of reasons why I haven't sold it:

1. Awesome tubes.
2. Love using the step sequencer. I've even been known to write patterns on the ESX and then record the midi into Live.
3. Fairly good effects, including a ring modulator. Sometimes I run a guitar through it.
4. It's pink, but it's dead sexy.

The biggest hang up for me has been that it's a powerful little beast, and I've only barely scratched the surface. I feel guilty that I don't give it enough attention.

jonesonyou
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Re: Korg ESX vs. Ableton vs ?

Post by jonesonyou » Sat Nov 20, 2010 7:57 pm

gaijin1717 wrote:I bought the ESX before I bought Live. If I had Live first I probably wouldn't have spent $400 on the ESX, but I did, and there are a lot of reasons why I haven't sold it:

1. Awesome tubes.
2. Love using the step sequencer. I've even been known to write patterns on the ESX and then record the midi into Live.
3. Fairly good effects, including a ring modulator. Sometimes I run a guitar through it.
4. It's pink, but it's dead sexy.

The biggest hang up for me has been that it's a powerful little beast, and I've only barely scratched the surface. I feel guilty that I don't give it enough attention.

+1

I started with an EMX, Some people work differently on hardware than soft. Most of the time hardware is way more fun. Currently I am only running ableton with 1 midi controller, and I would love go get another piece of hardware for all of these reasons. Also I still own Technics, analog mixer and 500+ 12" vinyl.

dj_huck
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Re: Korg ESX vs. Ableton vs ?

Post by dj_huck » Sat Nov 20, 2010 10:03 pm

one of neat things the esx does that ableton does not.....it syncs to a midi clock

delicioso
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Re: Korg ESX vs. Ableton vs ?

Post by delicioso » Sat Nov 20, 2010 10:48 pm

They're not very comparable. Electribes in this case scenario would be more complementary than anything else. It's not going to compete with Live unless you make very simple, limited and repetitive music. It would appeal more to someone who wants a toy to play with away from the computer once in a while.

But the answer to this thread is Native Instruments Maschine.

Maschine provides the same type of tactile, hands-on step sequencer with visual feedback through back-lit pads. But it goes further than an Electribe because you can switch to different resolutions (not just 16) as you're working on a pattern and the lit up pads will expand to reflect those changes and the second screen on the controller shows you where you are and the buttons above the screen lets you navigate.

Maschine is also fast becoming an excellent alternative to Live's session view, especially in light of the recently announced 1.6 update which brings plugin support. And aside from the advantage of having a dedicated controller from which you can do pretty much everything without ever touching a mouse, it also goes further than Live's session view due to certain features like being able to actually record real-time automation into clips. It also has a more flexible way of using scenes in terms of how you want scenes to behave. You can arrange scenes to play one after another, like follow actions for scenes, you can set one scene to loop until you select another scene, and you can select a range of scenes to loop. And you can do all this from the controller.

Silverfish
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Re: Korg ESX vs. Ableton vs ?

Post by Silverfish » Sun Nov 21, 2010 12:19 am

dj_huck wrote:one of neat things the esx does that ableton does not.....it syncs to a midi clock
ZING! I nearly spit my drink all over my gear.
Image

milfhuntr
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Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:19 pm

Re: Korg ESX vs. Ableton vs ?

Post by milfhuntr » Sun Nov 21, 2010 2:52 am

delicioso wrote:They're not very comparable. Electribes in this case scenario would be more complementary than anything else. It's not going to compete with Live unless you make very simple, limited and repetitive music. It would appeal more to someone who wants a toy to play with away from the computer once in a while.

But the answer to this thread is Native Instruments Maschine.

Maschine provides the same type of tactile, hands-on step sequencer with visual feedback through back-lit pads. But it goes further than an Electribe because you can switch to different resolutions (not just 16) as you're working on a pattern and the lit up pads will expand to reflect those changes and the second screen on the controller shows you where you are and the buttons above the screen lets you navigate.

Maschine is also fast becoming an excellent alternative to Live's session view, especially in light of the recently announced 1.6 update which brings plugin support. And aside from the advantage of having a dedicated controller from which you can do pretty much everything without ever touching a mouse, it also goes further than Live's session view due to certain features like being able to actually record real-time automation into clips. It also has a more flexible way of using scenes in terms of how you want scenes to behave. You can arrange scenes to play one after another, like follow actions for scenes, you can set one scene to loop until you select another scene, and you can select a range of scenes to loop. And you can do all this from the controller.
Being an owner of Komplete, I am a little shy of the cumbersome NI software and almost too many sounds, most of which could be completely elimintated without any complaints from the user. Is the Maschine software different and the sound quality better?

delicioso
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Re: Korg ESX vs. Ableton vs ?

Post by delicioso » Sun Nov 21, 2010 3:12 am

milfhuntr wrote:Being an owner of Komplete, I am a little shy of the cumbersome NI software and almost too many sounds, most of which could be completely elimintated without any complaints from the user. Is the Maschine software different and the sound quality better?
Sounds like you would definitely benefit from Maschine. I would say Komplete is more for someone who knows exactly what they want and why they would want Komplete to do what they want to do. It's also a collection of very powerful and complex, mouse-centric tools as most of their software are. But NI did something very different with Maschine and it's made more for the musician/composer rather than the programmer/geek crowd. It's all about the hands-on, focused, efficient workflow and the fun factor that encourages actually making music. I find Maschine's library and its sampling and sound shaping capabilities more than enough to be my only source of sounds. It has just the right balance of everything without getting carried away.

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